Graham Hampson Silk

In February 2001, Birmingham businessman Graham Hampson Silk was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), aged just 41, after having an MRI scan to investigate a niggling knee injury.

Graham says: “Everything had been going fantastically. I was enjoying life and my wife was expecting our third child. I couldn’t have been happier.

My diagnosis came out of the blue. Instead of having a white blood cell count of less than 10, it was over 100.

My brother was not a close enough match for me to have a transplant and I was given three years to live which was absolutely devastating. I just said ‘That’s not enough, I’ve got young children.’

I had been referred to Professor Charlie Craddock at University Hospital Birmingham and one day, six months after I had been diagnosed, he had some great news. He told me that he had managed to secure three places on a clinical trial for a promising drug being trialled in the US called ST1571. Two had been taken but I could have the last place.

Getting on a clinical trial saved my life. It’s now been 13 years since I was diagnosed, which is time I didn’t think I had.”

Are you a past or present patient of one of Cure Leukaemias clinical trials? If you would like to share your story we would love to hear from you. Just send us an email via this form, and Tracey Lester will be in touch.